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Home , Philosophy of film

364 – Summer 2011 of

Instructor: Richard Dub E-mail: [email protected] Class location: Scott Hall 102 Class meeting time: TTh 6:00–9:55 Office: 1 Seminary Place, room 002 Office hours: W 4:00–5:30

Course Description and Goals This course is an introduction to the philosophy of film. We discuss questions such as: What is film? Can film produce aesthetic value in ways that other artistic media can’t? Are motion pictures illusions? Is the intent of the director important in producing the meaning of a film? How and why do films move us emotionally? Can documentaries be free of bias?

By the conclusion of the course, you will have:

• become familiar with current debates in aesthetics.

• become more knowledgable about what makes motion pictures unique.

• become more adept at extracting arguments from philosophical papers and criticizing them.

• discovered new ways to think about films and new ways to have discussions about them.

Course Materials We’ll be reading two or three papers for each class. Reading the papers, and reading them suffi- ciently closely that you are prepared to discuss them, is mandatory. Readings will be available in a shared folder on Dropbox. If you don’t currently have a Dropbox account, you can sign up for free at http://db.tt/waBhdmI. Once you have an account, please send me the e-mail address that is linked to your account, and I will give you access to the shared folder. In the shared folder, you’ll also find additional optional readings for most classes. If you find the topic interesting, you may wish to read up on it further. You also might find these extra readings useful for writing your final paper.

We’ll be watching a movie each week. Movies will be screened in-class every Tuesday. You might also wish to watch the movies at home. It might be a good idea to sign up for Netflix if you don’t already have an account.

1 Grading Final grades will be based on your choice of the following two grading schemes:

1. One-page response papers due each Tuesday: 20 percent. Short post-movie quizzes: 10 percent. Class participation and discussion: 20 percent. A final (9 to 12 page) paper: 50 percent.

2. One-page response papers due each Tuesday: 10 percent. Short post-movie quizzes: 10 percent. Class participation and discussion: 20 percent. Final paper draft (due Aug 4): 20 percent. A final (9 to 12 page) paper: 40 percent.

Choose-Your-Own-Policies This class has a number of mutable policies. The policies are “mutable” in that you have the option of replacing them with whatever policy you think would be in your own best interest. The default policies of this class are:

• Attendance: three unexcused absences earn you an F in the course.

• Lateness: coming in more than twenty minutes late counts as an unexcused absence.

• Paper lateness: papers and assignments will drop a half-letter grade if submitted after the deadline, with an additional half-letter for each 24 hour period that elapses following the deadline. Response papers may not be submitted after the Tuesday they are expected.

• Cell phones: texting is not permitted in class.

• Laptops: laptops are not permitted in class.

• Crossword puzzles: forbidden.

These policies are for your own benefit, so I am willing to bend on them if you can provide me with good reason.

2 Course Schedule

This schedule is tentative and subject to revision at any point, depending on student interest and how quickly we move through the material.

Week 1

Jul 12 — What are Movies? Sparshott, F.E. “Basic Film Aesthetics” Carroll, Noel. “Defining the Moving Image” optional: Currie, Greg. “The that Never Was: A Nervous Manifesto”

Screening: Rashomon

Jul 14 — Representation and The Transparency Thesis Bazin, Andre. “The of the Photographic Image.” Walton, Kendall. “Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism” optional: Allan, Richard. “Looking at Motion Pictures” optional: Walton, Kendall. “On Pictures and Photographs: Objections Answered” optional: Carroll, Noel. “A Critical Look at Bazin’s Theory”

Week 2

Jul 19 — Visual Illusion Allan, Richard. “Representation, Illusion, and the Cinema” Anderson, Joseph and Barbara Anderson. “Motion in Motion Pictures” Currie, Greg. Image and Mind, page 34–42. optional: Anderson, Joseph. “Some Problems Reconsidered” optional: Millar, Susanna. “Modality and Mind”

Screening: Dancer in the Dark

Jul 21 — Medium Specificity Arnheim, “A New Laocoon: Artistic Composites and the Talking Film” Lopes, Dominic. “ Media and the Sense Modalities: Tactile Pictures”

Week 3

Jul 26 — The Language of Film Eisenstein, Sergei. “Beyond the Shot” Metz, Christian. Selections from Film Language. Bordwell, David. “Convention, Construction, and Cinematic Vision” optional: Currie, Greg. “The Long Goodbye: The Imaginary Language of Film” optional: Harman, Gilbert. “Semiotics and the Cinema: Metz and Wollen”

Screening: Shadow of a Doubt

3 Jul 28 — Authorship and the Theory Sarris, Andrew. Selections. Livingston, Paisley. “Cinematic Authorship” Wimsatt and Beardsley. “The Intentional Fallacy” optional: Gaut, Berys. “Film Authorship and Collaboration”

Week 4

Aug 2 — Documentaries and Ponech, Trevor. “What is Non-Fiction Cinema?” Carroll, Noel. “Fiction, Non-Fiction, and the Film of Presumptive Assertion: A Conceptual Analysis” optional: Plantinga, Carl. “Moving Pictures and the Rhetoric of Non-Fiction Film: Two Ap- proaches”

Screening: Grizzly Man

Aug 4 — Emotional Response Smith, Murray. “Imagining From the Inside” Turvey, Malcolm. “Seeing Theory: On Perception and Emotional Response in Current Film Theory” Coplan, Amy. “Empathic Engagement of Narrative Fictions” optional: Egan and Doggett. “Wanting Things You Don’t Want”

Week 5

Aug 9 — Ideology in Film Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Benjamin, Walter. “The in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

Screening: Peeping Tom

Aug 11 — Music in Film Kivy, Peter. “Music in the Movies: A Philosophical Enquiry” Levinson, Jerrold. “Film Music and Narrative ”

Week 6

Aug 16 — Open Class Possible topics of discussion: film and narrative structure, distinguishing genres, technological change, and film reception.

4 Classroom Environment Much of this class will be discussion-based. The material suits itself well to debate and argument. Participation in these discussions is expected. Studies have shown that people understand material better when they have the ability to discuss it and ask questions, so it is in your best interest to interact with your fellow students. (The class should also be a lot more if you do!) Note: combativeness is fine; disrespect is not. Disrespect directed toward other students will not be tolerated.

Students with Disabilities Please inform me of special needs that you may have. The sooner you notify me, the better I will be able to accommodate you.

Academic Integrity Violations of the Rutgers academic integrity policy (such as cheating, plagiarism, or downloading a paper from a paper mill) will result in severe punishment. Cheating in a class this small is ex- tremely easy for an instructor to spot. If you have cheated in the past and gotten away with it, it’s most likely because the instructor of the course gave you a pass. This is not one of those courses. If at some point you decide that cheating or plagiarizing is the only way that you will be able to complete an assignment, then take your lumps and do not submit the assignment at all. The pun- ishment for cheating will always be worse for you than the worst outcome had you not cheated. If you cheat on an assignment, then you won’t just receive an F on the assignment—you will be given an F in the course. If you cheat on the final, then you won’t just receive an F in the course—you will be given an F and risk expulsion from the university. In other words, punishments are such that it is never in your best interest to cheat. Please familiarize yourself with the integrity policy at http://academicintegrity.rutgers.edu/integrity.shtml.

A Note About Computer Submissions It’s amazing how often students have computer problems when papers are due. You’re a tech-savvy generation. I don’t buy it. Any work you have spent time writing should be continually backed up. Printer problems, corrupted files, stolen laptops, or anything else of that sort won’t be accepted as a legitimate excuse.

Please send in papers only with doc, docx, or pdf extensions.

Contact Information “Office” hours will be held at Au Bon on a time TBD (likely on Wednesdays). In general, I should be available after each class. You are encouraged to approach me and speak to me often! I’ll also be available by appointment. Talk to me after class or send me an e-mail to set one up. My e-mail address is given at the top of the syllabus. E-mails asking questions about the material are very much encouraged.

5 Metapolicy I reserve the right to amend the course schedule and policies as the semester progresses. I will only do so fairly, for very good reasons, and with plenty of warning.

Websites of Relevance

Philosophy Websites

1. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/

2. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://www.iep.utm.edu/

3. The Fallacy Files: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/

4. PhilPapers: http://philpapers.org/

5. Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper: http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/guidelines/writing.html

6. How to Write a Philosophy Paper: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/philosophy.html

Film Websites

1. Kristen Thompson and David Bordwell’s blog: http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/

2. Stanford Encyclopedia on Philosophy of Film: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/film/

3. MIT Online Course in Philosophy of Film: http://freevideolectures.com/Course/2134/Philosophy- of-Film

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